population control Archives - Protection of Conscience Project Library

(Correspondence) Physicians and abortion

Lynette E Sutherland

Canadian Medical Association Journal, CMAJ — Canadian Medical Association Journal

Extract
After I read the articles on abortion in CMAJ I began to wonder if ready access to abortion is the main issue. Are we faced with a Yes-No decision, or are we looking at a symptom of something deeper? . . . The world is overpopulated, yet more and more children are being born. Despite the efforts of many dedicated people (especially women) to take information on birth con- trol to the most afflicted parts of the world, little progress is being made. All the solutions are “Band-Aid” ones, and almost all – contraceptives, abortifacients and abortion itself – are directed toward women, whose reproductive capacity is certainly the root of so much trouble. To cure these ills, nothing short of a redirection of human nature is necessary. . . .the earth’s mad population increase will surely go on to a cataclysmic end. We can put this off temporarily if we follow the Chinese example (one-child or two-children families) worldwide, with strict supervision of female reproduction.

Sutherland LE. (Correspondence) Physicians and abortion. Can Med Assoc J. 1993;148(8):1276-1277.

Coercive Population Control Policies: An Illustration of the Need for a Conscientious Objector Provision for Asylum Seekers

E Tobin Shiers

Extract
Conclusion
When President Bush successfully thwarted passage of the Emergency Chinese Immigration Relief Act of 1989 and implemented his own order insisting upon “careful consideration” of victims who plead for political asylum because of coercive population control measures in their homelands, he unwittingly illustrated the need for a change in the statutory language. The Executive Order unwisely forces the issue of coercive population control policies into statutory language designed to protect victims of discrimination. Such manipulations would not be necessary if the Refugee Act of 1980 were amended to encompass the Handbook’s interpretation of the U.N. Protocol.

The interpretative guidelines to the U.N. Protocol, and derivatively
to the Convention, call for a “conscientious objector” exception to
military service. The grant of refugee status to individuals who prove
“valid reasons of conscience,” even reasons distinct from religious
claims, recognizes that fitting an individual within the protections of
the refugee definition requires a judgment on the means other nations
use to implement their policy ends, not just the ends themselves.
Rather than relying solely on the five narrow grounds for granting
asylum that were developed in response to the atrocities of World
War II, the U.N. Protocol, as interpreted by the Handbook, also
advocates protection for the individual persecuted by virtue of
mandatory participation in a military service with which he morally
disagrees. Because the debate regarding coercive population control
considers the legitimacy of means employed in achieving governmental
policy objectives, the logic of the conscientious objector exception
also applies to claims such as that of Chang.

Shiers ET. Coercive Population Control Policies: An Illustration of the Need for a Conscientious Objector Provision for Asylum Seekers. Va J Int Law. 1990;30(4):1007-1037.

(Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law (authors’ reply)

Wendell W Watters, May Cohen,Linda Rapson

Extract
On the issue of complications following legal abortion, Dr. Coffey quotes Jeffcoate, whose antiabortion views are widely known, and the Wynn report, a document compiled by two crusaders for “compulsory pregnancy’s who used data inappropriately in an attempt to substantiate their personal beliefs. . . Results of studies in Aberdeen, England and Sweden suggested that women denied a safe legal abortion – that is, the victims of compulsory pregnancy – were more likely to experience emotional distress than women who were allowed to exercise reproductive responsibility by the use of the option of legal abortion. In other words, compulsory pregnancy is bad medicine. Dr. Coffey makes another statement that is contradicted by modern evidence. The notion that abortion tends to be used as a method of primary birth control does not square with the evidence from the Population Council . . . .We can trace the enactment of antiabortion laws throughout history to policies of demographic aggression. . . .the Quebec government, in a state of demographic panic over its low birth rate, harassing our colleague Dr. Henry Morgentaler; and Canada competing demographically with the United States: all such irresponsible behaviour is potentially more lethal than nuclear holocaust. For almost a decade the United Nations has granted people the world over the right to plan their families without any interference from the state. This is a paper right until it extends, de facto as well as de jure, beyond conception to the point of potential viability.

Watters WW, Cohen M, Rapson L. (Correspondence) The Canadian abortion law (authors’ reply). Can Med Assoc J. 1976 Aug 07;115(3).